Chapter 8

Question 1

What is housing?

Answer 1

Housing refers to structures or buildings to protect people from the elements of weather. It also refers to places for interaction, security and rest.

Question 2

What are the kinds of housings?

Answer 2

• Formal (built with legal permission)
• Informal (Built without legal permission)
• Permanent (Long-term housing, the most common, found in both rural and urban areas)
• Temporary (Short-term housing, less common, found in very rural areas or cities)
• Government developed (e.g. Private housing)
• Privately developed (Formal and informal housing built by private companies)

Question 3

How can urban housing be classified as?

Answer 3

Height and density.

Question 4

Describe high-rise, high density buildings.

Answer 4

• Six storeys or higher
• Has lifts
• Accommodates large numbers of people
• Commonly found closer to or at the city centre
• Has shared facilities like playgrounds, exercise equipment and swimming pools

Example: Flats built by the HDB

Question 5

Describe low-rise, low density buildings.

Answer 5

• Lower than six storeys
• Lifts are optional
• Accommodates fewer people
• Rarely found at the city centre
• Usually located closer to the city fringe

Examples: Privately built detached houses, terraces, shophouses

Question 6

Describe the shortage of housing.

Answer 6

It is a serious problem in cities, which occurs when the growth of housing is slower than the growth of the population.

Question 7

Describe formal and informal housing.

Answer 7

Formal housing: legally built by the government or private developers
Informal housing: Illegally built by private individuals who do not have access to formal housing

Question 8

What are the features of formal housing?

Answer 8

• It is built by the government or private developers with legal rights to use the land.
• It is permanent.
• It is typically constructed with high-quality building materials.
• There is access to basic services.

Question 9

Why is formal housing generally built by the government or private developers?

Answer 9

This is because of the high cost and the coordination of basic services required.

Question 10

Describe how HDB estates in Singapore conforms to the needs of residents.

Answer 10

Singapore’s Housing Development Board (HDB) develops public housing estates with amenities like food centres, recreational facilities, public transport, and educational facilities. They offer various flat sizes and financial subsidies to ensure affordability. As of 2020, over 80% of Singaporeans reside in public housing. Private developers also develop high-density condominiums or low-density landed properties, with shared amenities.

Question 11

What do land rights do?

Answer 11

land rights enable individuals to freely acquire, use and own land at their discretion, provided that their activities do not hinder the rights of other individuals or entities.

Question 12

What are the positive impacts of well-being when someone own a land?

Answer 12

Owning the land on which housing is built makes homeowners feel secure and increases their ability to do many things.

Question 13

Describe some basic services that comes with formal housing.

Answer 13

• Electricity (through electrical substations or power grids)
• Running water (through water distribution pipes)
• Sanitation (through sewage pipes)

Question 14

Why is basic services for housing needed in Singapore?

Answer 14

Infrastructure required to support basic services are built together with the town or housing estate, where access to these services increases the quality of life for residents.

Question 15

Why are the basic services constructed underground in Singapore?

Answer 15

In Singapore, most of these services are constructed underground so that it does not take up land in this land-scarce country.

Question 16

What are the factors of the guidelines and regulations that vary on on the use of building materials?

Answer 16

• The level of economic development
• Environmental needs
• Threat of hazards
• Social circumstances

Question 17

What are some common high-quality building materials?

Answer 17

• Concrete
• Metal
• Hard wood

Question 18

What should the purpose high-quality building materials be?

Answer 18

• Withstand the extremes of weather and climate experienced in the area
• Protect occupants from fires
• Last for a long period of time with minimal maintenance

Question 19

What is The Building and Construction Authority?

Answer 19

It is the statutory board that oversees the guidelines and regulations related to construction in Singapore. This is done to ensure the safety and quality of buildings.

Question 20

What are the features of informal housing?

Answer 20

• Self built by individuals or communities with no legal rights to use the land
• Occurs when people are unable to access formal housing
• Has little or no access to basic services, resulting in poor living conditions

Question 21

Why do informal housing develop?

Answer 21

• Many city governments are unable to cope with the large influx of people entering the cities and a housing shortage ensues.
• People who cannot afford the available formal housing end up building informal housing in undesirable parts of the city or on the city outskirts. Such people are known as squatters and large concentrations of such housing form squatter settlements.

Question 22

Why do governments view squatter settlements as undesirable?

Answer 22

They tend to suffer from various problems:
- Social unrest
- Degradation of the environment
- Vulnerable to the spread of infectious diseases

• Appropriate intervention is needed so that squatter settlements do not become a problem and eyesore.
• With the right policies, squatter settlements can be transformed into solutions that address the housing shortage issues faced by growing cities and aid in the sustainable development of cities.

Question 23

How is informal housing built?

Answer 23

• Self-built by individuals or communities.
• Built in an unplanned manner, with no plans for the provision of basic services such as water and electricity.

Informal housing is usually constructed from scavenged materials of poor quality:
- Repurposed pieces of wood
- Cardboard
- Zinc sheets

Due to the use of low-quality building materials, houses in informal settlements are unsafe:
- Fire hazard
- Risk of collapse
- Risk of flooding during rainy season

Question 24

Where can squatter settlements be found?

Answer 24

Squatter settlements may be found conveniently located along rivers and transport routes, but they are still developed without any government planning.

Question 25

Why is people living in informal housing known as illegal occupants?

Answer 25

• Informal housing is built on any empty plot of land accessible to people desperate for housing.
• Empty land does not mean that anyone can use it as they please as that land is owned by either the government, private individuals or businesses. Individuals who build informal housing on such plots of land are thus illegal occupants.

Question 26

Why are illegal occupants at risk of losing their lives and homes?

Answer 26

• The unoccupied land is usually located in an undesirable or dangerous area (beside railway tracks, etc.).
• Landowners have the legal right to evict illegal occupants off their property. Occupants of informal housing are thus at constant risk of losing their homes.

Question 27

How do occupants of informal housing resort to illegal or improper means to deal with the lack of basic services, and how are they harmful?

Answer 27

• Tapping into electrical grids illegally
• Siphoning water from pipes illegally
• Dumping sanitary waste into waterways or on the ground

People who divert electricity illegally run the risk of electrocution and the improper disposal of sanitary waste increases the risk of the spread of waterborne diseases such as dysentery.

Question 28

Where is formal housing found and what are the factors that allow sustainability?

Answer 28

Formal housing is found on desirable land inside a city.

The government and private developers strive to situate formal housing in areas suitable for residential development. Such factors include being free from pollution, close to greenery, facilities and amenities, and supported by infrastructure for basic services, such as roads, piped water, electricity and proper waste disposal.

Question 29

Where is informal housing found, what are the factors that contribute to its surroundings and what will result of it?

Answer 29

Informal housing inside cities is found on undesirable land, in areas of locally unwanted land-use, for example, land located near landfills, transport routes, polluting industries and sewage treatment plants.

Undesirable land inside a city is often neglected and very little infrastructure development is found in such areas. Such areas are usually the only available unused space inside cities. Compared to areas on the fringe of cities, squatter settlements are found more often at these areas as they are closer to the city centre, where work can be found, and inhabitants can save on transport costs.

Question 30

What are the factors that affect location of housing?

Answer 30

• Land-use planning
• Developers
• Land prices
• Housing financial support

Question 31

Describe land-use planning.

Answer 31

Urban authorities set up guidelines and regulations for land use. The authorities generally use zoning as a planning tool to avoid the mixing of incompatible land uses, for example residential areas should not be built near landfills.
Formal housing is built on land assigned for residential development whereas informal housing occurs anywhere, regardless of the land use plan.

Question 32

What are the benefits of zoning?

Answer 32

• Zoning ensures that the urban built environment is well developed.
• It restricts certain types of activities to certain areas in a city.
• Zoning shapes a city’s layout or plan.

Question 33

Describe the developers of formal housing.

Answer 33

Private developers can be individuals or companies that develop housing for profit. They tend to pick sites which can be sold easily and for a good profit.
Compared to profit-driven private developers, housing developed by the government would consider the people’s quality of life first before profit. The government may choose to develop what seems to be an isolated plot of land far away from other amenities, but it is actually part of the long-term land-use plan.

Question 34

State how informal housing is developed.

Answer 34

When there is space, informal housing settlements tend to spring up near large industrial or residential developments to tap on the existing infrastructure for transport, electricity and clean water.

Question 35

How does the cost of land impact the cost of housing?

Answer 35

Higher land prices will lead to an increase in housing costs. If land prices are too high, housing costs will become exorbitant; ordinary people who are unable to afford to buy or rent a home will be forced to build informal housing. New migrants coming from rural areas and the urban poor will be disproportionately affected.

Question 36

Why are city centres highly desirable housing locations?

Answer 36

The highest land prices are usually found at a city centre and drops as proximity increases. City centres are highly desirable housing locations as such locations enjoy close proximity to a wide range of amenities. For example, shopping malls, educational facilities and food and beverage outlets. Governments often try to regulate the price of land in cities so that housing remains affordable to all.

Question 37

Why is financial support for housing provided?

Answer 37

Providing financial support to housing developers lowers the cost of building homes. This encourages developers to take on the often expensive task of constructing homes and helps to prevent housing shortages.
Financial support helps developers to keep construction costs low and allows housing to be sold at affordable prices.

Question 38

State some real life examples where financial support for housing benefits.

Answer 38

The US has a low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) programme, that gives private developers tax credits for building affordable housing for rental. The completed housing development must be available for rent at below market rates for at least 30 years after completion.

The UK has an Affordable Homes Programme that provides grants to private developers to build affordable homes.

Question 39

What happens if no financial support is provided for homes?

Answer 39

Informal housing settlements will develop as the urban poor and new migrants from rural areas cannot afford to buy or rent a home.